Millions in Stolen Cryptocurrency Being Laundered by KelpDAO Hackers

Following the $290 million KelpDAO heist, the perpetrators have initiated the laundering process of their illicitly obtained funds, as revealed by blockchain investigator ZachXBT and data from Arkham. On Tuesday, during European business hours, the wallet controlling the exploit proceeds executed two significant transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, totaling $117 million and $58 million. According to ZachXBT, a portion of the stolen cryptocurrency has already been transferred across different chains, with approximately $1.5 million being bridged from Ethereum to Bitcoin via Thorchain, and an additional $78,000 routed through the Umbra privacy protocol. Notably, North Korean hacking group Lazarus has previously employed similar protocols, including Thorchain, for laundering purposes. The use of cross-chain transfers and privacy tools in the early stages of laundering suggests that the attacker is likely preparing to further distribute the funds across multiple platforms. The KelpDAO breach is one of the most substantial decentralized finance hacks in recent months, prompting widespread negative sentiment and concerns about potential contagion across the DeFi sector. In response to the hack, Layer 2 network Arbitrum announced the freezing of $71 million in ether linked to the incident, which may pressure the exploiter to expedite the movement and laundering of the remaining funds.